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2 Questions: Photo URLs and Public/Private problems

New user here - be gentle. I have two questions that I could use some help with.

First question:I have recently installed Zenphoto 1.4.14 using the one click install offered by x10hosting.com. I was looking for a simple gallery utility that would allow me to store my photos on my web space using my own folder structure, and then overlay a gallery as a way to drill down to find the URL of a specific photo, so that I could paste that URL between [IMG] tags in a forum post (spurred on by the demise of free 3rd party hosting at Photobucket, obviously).

Zenphoto seems to do this very nicely. If I upload my photos via FTP using Filezilla on my Macbook, then when I drill down from within the gallery the URL shows properly, in the form:<website>/MyPhotobucket/albums/<folder>/<filename>. So far so good.

But when I use an FTP client on my iPhone (I tried two, FTPManager and FTP Client Lite) to upload a photo to the same location, the gallery will not display the proper URL. Instead it shows something in the form:<website>/MyPhotobucket/zp-core/full-image.php?a=<folder>&i=<filename>&q=75&wmk=%21&dsp=Protected%20view&check=302ba384de8acd5d34ffd05d…..

All I can think is that there’s something different about the flavour of FTP that the phone client uses?

Second question:Ideally I’d like to make my gallery Private. When I do that, after I enter my admin username and password and then drill down to a specific photo I’m then asked for another username and password, and the only one I’ve set up (the admin user) doesn’t work. I cannot view any photos. Worse than that, if I switch the gallery back to Public, any photos that I’ve attempted to view while the gallery was private still appear to be behind that password screen. No amount of clearing cache, reloading etc will give me access to that photo. Even using a different browser still brings up that password screen. The only way I’ve found to get access to that photo is to uninstall and reinstall the gallery software.

ThanksChris

Comments

A third question:I attempted to change the Gallery title through the admin interface, and when I hit the 'Apply' button the title and description went blank. I checked some previous questions about this, where the browser was implicated. My default browser is Chrome on my Macbook under MacOS Sierra, so I tried Safari as well with the same result. Is there something about the default permissions etc on my host platform that could be responsible for all these errors? I'm a complete novice with regards to web hosting, so any advice would be appreciated.

#3: You mean the fields are blank or the whole page? In any case please review the Zenphoto debug log or even better your PHP server error log (ask your host where to find that).

But if I recall right that hoster offers free hosting. That could be very well the problem as free hostings are often limited in resources because they are free naturally. If you really want a usable site I strongely recommend to get proper paid webspace. That is available for a few euros respectively pounds per months.

#2: Thanks - I've unpublished all my albums, which makes them a little more secure. But it's still possible for someone to try the direct URL to each folder in the path of one of my images and stumble across one of my unpublished albums. So I've experimented with passwords again, and I still think it's not working properly. If I set an album-level password, then that allows me to access the album, but if I then drill down to an individual photo I'm then asked for another username/password, and no combination works. And, as before, if I then remove the password setting from the album, I'm still asked for a username/password for any image that I attempted to view while the password setting was active.

#3: the gallery name and description fields are blank. Nothing in the debug log. I'll try to find the PHP server log to see if that helps.

Yes, I'm using the free hosting offered by x10hosting.com, while I figure out if private hosting is the way to go (given that my main objective is to be able to create URLs to my photos for use in a forum, and which won't be removed or suddenly start costing me hundreds of pounds per year for the privilege). Signing up for a paid service, on the off chance that it might fix a problem with the software, would be a last resort. I may well sign up to a paid service once I know if this is the way to go, but in the meantime I'd like to try and iron out all the bugs, or at least trace what's causing them.

More info on #2:Photos that I attempted to view while I had an Album password set continue to present me with a login screen even when I've removed the Album password. No combination of username and password will work....

...except, if I leave the username and password blank and just click on the Login button, then it lets me see the photo.

#2: If you access the image directly in the albums folder that is outside of Zenphoto's control because it is not involved. Normally Zenphoto uses an image page for that reason and not directly the full image.

The only way to secure those original albums is to either place it outside the webroot or protect it via htaccess (which I am not sure your free hoster allows at all). The latter can have impact on SEO since search engines will also be blocked likely as will be calls within outside forums. We have info on that htaccess solution on our user guide. Search for "Hotlink protection".

So the best is to not use the full images itsself but the cached ones. Please review our user guide a bit how Zenphoto works.

#3: You really get proper webspace for few money. Your free hosting most likely has limited traffic as well so embeding in well visited forums can likey exceed those limits fast.If it is really important to you you should invest that little money. You pay more if you get a drink somewhere…

#2: I am not aiming to prevent access to folders, but currently when someone accesses a subfolder in the path to one of my images, it shows an album page. This is expected behaviour for an unpublished, unprotected album I think. Hence I wanted to change the album to password-protected, but whenever I do that it seems that the drilling down to a specific image, after entering the album username and password, is not possible, because an additional password screen appears. And this screen remains even if I switch the album back to unprotected.

#3: The problem seems unrelated to the free hosting. Based on another forum post (http://www.zenphoto.org/support/topic.php?id=8834) I changed the gallery to 'multi-lingual', and I was able to successfully enter a gallery title in the English title field. In fact, after switching back to non-multi-lingual, the title remained set, but if I attempt to edit it again it disappears. So the problem appears to be related to the multi-lingual setting. When 'multi-lingual' is not enabled, the gallery title and description cannot be edited.

#2: Got it - all the individual photos in an album have to be 'unpublished' as well. I assumed that unpublishing an album was sufficient, but it seems the photos have to be unpublished as well. So now, even if someone navigates to the folder in the path of one of my images, the album page that displays shows no photos or image thumbnails.